Autotrader

Case Study

Autotrader Gains 4X Faster Time to Market

Flexibility to support different methodologies – Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe®

Easy to adopt and implement

Challenges

Autotrader, a leading online resource for car shoppers and sellers, is part of Cox Automotive. The entire organization was committed to the idea of agile at scale from the start, so instead of just focusing on agile as a technology team transformation, they looked at the positive impact that agile could have across all the disciplines within the company.

Solution

Autotrader started their agile implementation with a small pilot program with cross-functional team. The team decided to use VersionOne to give them a structure to get started with agile processes and their transformation.

After the initial pilot, other teams started asking to get into the system, so the organization selected VersionOne because of its ease-of-use, simple implementation and excellent support. It was very important to get team members up and running with the system quickly.

Autotrader took a planned approach to their implementation to make sure that they were setting up the structures of the actual work, matching it to all the portfolios, and adding team members as it made sense. The progress of adding new users has climbed steadily as they have added teams, and now they have more than 200 users on VersionOne.

“Hands down, the teams love VersionOne. I have implemented several solutions throughout my career and this is one of the easiest for the users to adopt and use right away. In addition, the support has been great. There’s not a single time that I felt like I was ‘on an island’ and couldn’t get answers to our questions in a very timely manner.”

Sherolyn SellersSenior Manager, Process Delivery
Autotrader.com

Benefits

With the kick start from working with VersionOne, Autotrader has seen immediate results. The teams were using VersionOne to establish their agile processes and make changes to adapt to their business along the way. After three months, the teams were building momentum and producing working software.

In fact, Autotrader is introducing new releases at least four times faster than before implementing VersionOne now that they have the structure, processes and the visibility to more efficiently manage the work. In addition, defects are decreasing and product quality is increasing because of the level of detail that the teams can capture in the solution.

Stakeholder satisfaction is extremely positive now that the organization has the visibility to manage team velocity, project burndown, and other key performance metrics to make sure they are on track with the goals of the business. Now executives have easy access to the data they need to see progress and make more informed decisions on the prioritization and sequencing of projects. In addition, since Autotrader is part of Cox Automotive, they are adding new procedures and processes so they can start to visualize how projects are aligning with the corporation’s strategic view.

As Autotrader has grown, the fact that they have been using VersionOne since the beginning has allowed them to scale agile without that ever being a concern. Currently the organization has more than 20 Scrum teams and is managing projects at multiple tiers. Autotrader managers are able to use the epic board to see how work is flowing through the system, understand how expectations are being met, and identify any roadblocks or dependencies that need to be resolved. VersionOne has become a critically important system of record.

It has also been important that the inherent flexibility in the VersionOne platform was able to support different roles and methodologies. Autotrader has Scrum and Kanban teams and they are also using the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®). Even though the teams leverage VersionOne in different ways, they have a common platform for overall reporting to make sure there is alignment with the portfolio and initial investments from their leadership. In addition, the ScrumMasters and Kanban leads have the platform to start building their own community of practice.